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I want to configure my system so that tap-to-click is disabled on the touchpad. (It's running a rather old version of ALTLinux distro with xorg-server-1.4.2-alt10.M41.1.)

The most popular advice I have found is to execute synclient MaxTapTime=0 in the user's X session.

I could accept this solution, but the problem is that this doesn't work for all users with their different preferred X "environment".

The first user has logged in in the linux console, and run startx. X server for his session has occupied the 7th virtual linux console. He uses bare ratpoison.

The second user has logged in, run startx. X server for his session has occupied the 8th virtual linux console. He uses WindowMaker.

synclient MaxTapTime=0 has had an effect in the second user's X session, but has had no effect when executed in the first user's X session.

So, can this setting be done system-wide, for the X server, perhaps in xorg.conf?

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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One way to do it is by adding a file called 10-synaptics.conf in the directory /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d (create the directory if it does not exist). In this file you can put something like

Section "InputClass"
    Identifier "touchpad catchall"
    Driver "synaptics"
    MatchIsTouchpad "on"
    MatchDevicePath "/dev/input/event*"
    Option "MaxTapTime"             "0"
EndSection

if MaxTapTime is the option you want to set.

It seems that (to be correct) TapButton1 is the option you want to set, to 0 (for disabling one-finger tap), as in our example here. Setting MaxTapTime is just an ugly workaround.

# Which mouse button is reported on a non-corner one-finger tap (set to 0 to disable)
    Option "TapButton1" "0"
# Which mouse button is reported on a non-corner two-finger tap (set to 0 to disable)
    Option "TapButton2" "0"
# Which mouse button is reported on a non-corner three-finger tap (set to 0 to disable)
    Option "TapButton3" "0"

Note that the name of the file is not important, and you could as well use 10-notouchpadtap.conf. The number however is used to define the order in which the configuration files are used by the system.

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  • That's a nice answer, but probably this works only with newer servers. My xorg-server-1.4.2-alt10.M41.1 doesn't accept an InputClass section... And my xorg.conf doesn't have any InputDevice sections (with a comment "With libXiconfig we don't need configuration for ps and usb mice."). So, as for now, I'm in doubt how to correctly put the wanted option into my xorg.conf...
    – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
    Apr 17, 2014 at 16:38
  • Asked a specific question for my old X server without InputClass: unix.stackexchange.com/q/125264/4319
    – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
    Apr 17, 2014 at 18:07
  • 1
    After creating the directory and the settings file, no daemon restart was needed! thought someone else would like to know.
    – Ddorda
    Sep 28, 2015 at 14:45
  • In a fresh installation of an ALTLinux system, there might be already the file /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-synaptics.conf provided by xorg-conf-synaptics-0.2-alt1 package with some frequently used options. One could simply add his custom configuration into this file. (It is marked as a "configuration" file by RPM, so RPM will try to be careful with one's custom configuration on upgrades.)
    – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
    Nov 14, 2015 at 13:11
  • I've included the example how to disable the tap in xorg-conf-synaptics-0.3-alt1 in ALTLinux (which I've been using and had in mind when asking the question). One will have to just read the file and uncomment a line.
    – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev
    Nov 14, 2015 at 20:23

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